The fabric industry employs a rotary cutter to cut fabric to desired shapes and sizes. Many of the cuts made with the rotary cutter are required to be linear and a straight edge or ruler is used to guide the blade as the cut is made. The blade for such rotary cutters are expensive, and therefore to reduce the damage to the blade as it cuts fabric is it common to employ a resilient pad below the fabric. Nonetheless, the blades become dull over time and must ultimately be replaced.
One of the most important tools employed in the fabric industry is a ruler or straight edge for guiding the blade as it undertakes a linear cut. It is desirable, when making linear cuts in fabric, that the cut be without notches of indentations because such irregularities in the edges effect the usefulness of the panels of material on both sides of the cut. Accordingly, many of the cuts are made using a fabric ruler which is typically rectangularly shaped or square shaped, that is having two sets of parallel opposing sides with the sets perpendicular to each other and having planar forward and rearward surfaces.
It would be desirable to have an improved ruler for the fabric industry that would, in addition to providing a guide for undertaking a straight cut, aid in the sharpening the blade of a rotary cutter.